Oil and gas industry

After failing in the last legislative session early this year, a major update of New Mexico’s Oil and Gas Act is again in the works, this time with a sharp push from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office.

In a letter to lawmakers and state agencies like the departments of Energy Minerals and Natural Resources and Agriculture, some 16 different conservation organizations are highlighting the dire need for adequate staff funding to ensure current and future state investments in water conservation are utilized to their full potential.

How the remote, ancient landscape became the center of a debate among Indigenous groups weighing the value of ancestral sites against the economic potential of their future.

This October marks the 100th anniversary of the first oil leases on the Navajo Nation. In that time, outsiders have shown up looking for uranium, coal, oil and other minerals, taking resources and money while leaving contamination and poverty behind.

The Bureau of Land Management has proposed comprehensive changes to its rules for oil and gas leasing on federal land for the first time since 1988. The revision is designed to increase industry returns for taxpayers while also reducing harm to wildlife and cultural resources as part of the agency’s effort to better balance development with conservation. New Mexicans are invited to attend an information session in Albuquerque Tuesday to learn more about it ahead of submitting input.

This week, President Joe Biden went on a three day campaign blitz to show Americans in the Southwest what he’s been doing to help their day-to-day lives and how he’s tackling climate change in the meantime.

A nonprofit organization looking to map North American methane emissions has started flying a special jet over New Mexico’s San Juan Basin to gather data on sources of pollution from the state’s booming oil and gas industry.

As a top oil and gas producer, New Mexico has some of the strictest emissions rules in the country. That includes a state Environment Department rule that went into effect last year that aims to reduce ozone-causing air pollution by 260 million pounds a year. However, Environment Secretary James Kenney says the agency is falling short on enforcing the rules and is asking the Legislature to help change that.

Oil and gas money is all over the New Mexico Roundhouse. It accounts for 35% of the state budget proposal this year, according to the Legislative Finance Committee. It’s also in the campaign coffers of politicians on both sides of the aisle. It’s within this landscape that debates around expanding or restricting fossil fuel production take place.

Financial consultants warned members of the Revenue Stabilization & Tax Policy Committee Monday that the state’s reliance on the notoriously boom-and-bust oil and gas sector is risky. They implored lawmakers to reform taxes and diversify the economy to protect itself.